Many people seem surprised that not only is Trump doing the things he kept saying he'd do if he was in office, but how quickly he's doing them. I can't say that I'm in the least bit surprised, only disappointed that he's meeting such tepid resistance from Congress and the rest of the country. To be sure, plenty of people are protesting and complaining on social media, and I imagine the ACLU has never seen this many donations at once.

But the administration has not only committed an obvious and flagrant illegal act in its travel ban, it is also attempting in some cases to ignore the courts – thus subverting checks and balances that our nation depends on. Whether you agree or disagree with the administration, when the executive branch decides it no longer answers to the legislative or judicial branch, we're in dangerous territory.

There's the small matter of dropping the Joint Chiefs from the Security Council and appointing white supremacist Stephen Bannon on the council. If that doesn't scare the living daylights out of you, I don't know what will.

In the past few years, I don't think a week has gone by without someone exhorting me to sign an electronic petition of some sort. Usually these are excellent causes and very well-meaning people who want to change the world… so long as it doesn't involve actually having to put pen to paper, go anywhere, etc.

I've seen little evidence that people take these electronic petitions very seriously. I suppose there's little to lose in signing one, except that it may substitute for "doing something" in the minds of people who care about a cause, and it replaces actually writing a letter, making a phone call, or even protesting or showing up in person to make a statement. Granted, you'll only be able to mobilize a small fraction of the people who'd sign an electronic petition, but that small fraction may make more of a difference than a mob of digital signatures.